She is, after all, 40, an age at which mostbody reassess their life. That is, if they have not already done so at 35. In my youth I happened to be an assistant (& share an office with) to two men in succession who reached that milestone; they both definitely went quite funny for a bit as they came to terms with the fact that they were past the halfway mark to their three score years and ten.
I suppose it is inevitable that spending more time with one’s family should be taken as a women’s issue – men give this only as a cover up reason. But plenty of Cabinet ministers have found either that they are not up to the job or that it is not up to them, & by the nature of things the vast majority of them have been men
Think of the procession of heir-to-Thatcher blue eyed boys who fell to earth; the captains of industry who found Westminster politics not to their taste; Lord Gowrie, who could not live in London on £30,000 a year …
It is a punishing life – I remember one man, seasoned in both politics & business, who, a few months after his appointment, asked his Private Secretary if all ministers had to work so hard. Add to that four pregnancies in less than 10 years, two homes 200 miles apart …
In truth Ruth Kelly did not seem to be a very good politician, certainly not one of Cabinet rank. She failed to master the House of Commons, & her performance over HIPS was lamentable (perhaps she did not believe in them either).
The only people I have heard express real regret at her going both worked for her. But even they make her sound as if she would be better in a senior position in industry, or chairing a quango, or even being a senior civil servant. She reminds me of the criticism of Virginia Bottomley over the reform of the London teaching hospitals – ‘She’s treating it like a technical problem & ignoring the politics’
And here perhaps lies one of those things where women ‘tend to’ differ from men. I noticed it in my career. A professional disagreement arises, eventually there has to be a high-level meeting to decide whose method or estimate to accept. If the victor is a man, his reaction is ‘I won’. If a woman ‘I hope I am right.’ Sometimes you have to give less than the ‘right’ answer in order to get things through in politics - that is what ministers are there for
Even the manner her going she seems to see solely as personal & private, had not thought to get together with her political allies to work out how to wring maximum advantage from it
Related posts
